All cheese. No mousetrap.

That’s the problem with some marketing strategies. You pay more attention to SEO and traffic and less to CRO and conversion. But, an effective lead generation program needs both.

You need to focus on these elements first before search optimization for at least two reasons:

• Better conversion rates improve lead generation from all traffic sources, not just organic. They also boost lead flow through direct, referral, and social channels. 
• Improving conversion rates through better UX and conversion copywriting is sustainable. They don’t require an endless stream of articles. If you fix the conversion rate on a key service page, and it will stay fixed. 

At Orbit Media, I’ve spent years building a high-impact conversion rate optimization (CRO) process that converts traffic into $8 million in revenue without spending a dollar on ads. 

In this article, I’ve outlined five tips to optimize conversion rate on your website. These are backed by rigorous testing, measurable results, and decades of experience growing a digital agency. 

Let's go!

We start at the end, and the reason is obvious but often overlooked.  If the contact form is broken or there is friction at the end of the process, it will hurt results when the visitor is about to take the final action.

Think of lead generation as a chain. Every link is a step in the process, starting with a traffic source and ending on a thank you page.

Fixing issues at the end of the chain makes every previous link more effective. A better conversion rate makes every visit more valuable. That’s why it’s our starting point.

A few steps to fix the bottom of the funnel include:

Analyze your contact page performance

Your contact page is the final step. If visitors land on it but don’t fill out the form, something is wrong. You can use a GA4 exploration to answer basic questions about your contact page performance: 

• How many people visit the contact page?
• What percentage actually completes the form?
• Where are they dropping off?

Here’s what a simple GA4 funnel exploration looks like:

If less than 5% of visitors to your contact page fill out the form, you have a conversion problem. Fix this before undertaking SEO activities to drive more traffic.

Watch session recordings to spot friction points

It’s critical to performance, but many marketers haven’t done it yet. 

Sit down and watch how real visitors interact with your contact page to see issues affecting conversion.  

Use a free tool like Microsoft Clarity to record sessions. Create a filter to show only the sessions that included a visit to the contact page and exclude sessions from out-of-market countries. Then, pop some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the show.

The trick is not to freak out when you see a potential issue. Remain calm and keep watching. You are looking for patterns, not single examples. Try to watch ten desktop sessions and ten mobile sessions before concluding.

Here are a few things you’ll quickly notice: 

• Where people abandon your form
• The information people are skipping 
• How slow loading URLs affect the visitor experience
• If the number of form fields or confusing form labels slow visitors down

From my experience, it’s form issues, unclear calls to action (CTAs), or distractions that cause visitors to leave before completing the process.

Fix your form first

Once you know where (and probably why) visitors drop off, look for the little fixes that can lead to big conversion lifts:

• Make the CTA crystal clear: Instead of "Submit," use action-oriented text like "Get My Free Consultation."
• Move things up: Is there a big image at the top pushing the contact form down? Shorten it. Is there a huge text that says “Contact” but adds no value? Remove it. 
• Reduce form fields: Every extra field lowers conversions. Keep only the essentials.
• Remove distractions: You lose leads if your contact page has links pulling visitors away.
• Make the form mobile-friendly: A form that works on desktop but is a nightmare on mobile will kill conversions.

Pro tip: If the visitor clicked a verb, do this:
Look closely at the page they landed on. Ensure it is fast and easy to take that specific action. Optimize the header to fulfill the intent they came for and remove any text or images above that action. 

There is a true story in the life of every visitor to every webpage.

Visitors who land on service pages have high purchase intent and are more likely to become leads than those who land on blog posts. Blog readers want answers, while service page visitors want help. 

Yet marketers often pay very little attention to service pages. They focus 90% on blog content, posting one article after another, expecting content marketing to become the major lead gen driver.

If you check your Analytics and create a comparison to separate those who land on blog posts from those who land on service pages, you’ll see the dramatic difference in lead generation conversion rates. 

The difference is clear in the screenshot below. Visitors who start on a service page are ten times more likely to become a lead than visitors who start on a blog post. So, let’s ensure those service pages work hard before writing another article. It is an essential link in the conversion chain.

This is the process I created for optimizing service pages:

Step one: Take time to deeply understanding your prospect’s information needs

When a visitor has commercial intent but doesn’t convert, it’s usually because a key piece of information is missing. Perhaps you’ve left a question unanswered, or an objection remains unaddressed. They landed on your site with a specific need but couldn’t find their desired answer.

To fix this, I do qualitative research before optimizing a page. You don’t know how to build a webpage until you ask the right questions.

Questions I ask prospects before structuring a service page:

There is no substitute for customer interviews. The interview format allows the customer to explain things deeply or rant and rave. It gives insights and hidden clues into your ideal customer's deeper motivations, emotional triggers, and decision criteria. 

A few questions I ask during customer interviews include:

• Take me back to the moment you first realized you needed help. What triggered your search for a solution?
• What else did you try? What didn’t you love about it? This helps highlight why we’re different.
• What was the biggest problem you were hoping to solve? This ensures the main message on the page speaks directly to their pain point.
• What was most important to you when evaluating options? This will help me prioritize key messaging on the page.
• What can you do now that you couldn’t do before? This helps create a before-and-after transformation that builds urgency.

Questions to ask your top salesperson

Frontline sales reps often have great insights into the mindset of the potential buyer. So talk to them. 

Here are a few questions to ask your sales team:

• What questions are you sick and tired of hearing? Whatever the answer, make sure your marketing funnel has that information.
• What should people ask you, but they usually don’t? Use this to show expertise and differentiate from competitors.
• What is the A-ha moment prospects have during sales calls? This may fit into a header or subhead. 
• Fill in this blank: People can work with us even if they ____? Use this question to handle objections and get ahead of your visitor’s concerns.

For example, if your sales team keeps answering the same question about contract flexibility, but you didn’t mention it anywhere on the website, add it. Since it handles an objection, put it near the CTA.

You can only create a high-converting page when you understand the information needs of your visitor. 

Step two: Improve findability

According to the NN Group, findability is the biggest cause of user failure. Visitors don’t convert because they get confused when they can’t find the information they need to decide. If your service page doesn’t instantly provide clarity, they leave.

Sometimes, making content easier to find is simply a matter of formatting.

• Position the core offering at the top: Use above the fold to explain what you do, who you do it for, and why you’re the best choice.
• Break up long paragraphs: Don’t bury key details in long paragraphs. Break them into clear sections, bullet points, and visuals.
• Make the CTA obvious: Don’t hide the action you want them to take. Use contrasting colors and clear placement to make your CTA engaging.

Step three: Structure the page like a sales conversation

High-converting service pages mirror the way a great salesperson sells. It emulates a sales call, answering the prospect’s questions and addressing their objections. It doesn’t just list features and say “we love us” but also shows the value as it aligns with the prospect’s pain points.

High-converting service pages do something else that top sales reps do: they provide supportive evidence for their claims, which brings us to the next point…

If your visitors don’t believe you, they won’t convert. When the page loads, they need proof that you can deliver on your promises, or they won’t trust you. In this instance, the page becomes a big list of unsupported claims. 

Anyone can say, “We’re the best in the business.”  But can you back it up with evidence?

Testimonials are a popular favorite. They are magical because they change the messenger in the most convincing way. Instead of you saying that you're effective and worth the cost, a customer says it for you. 

They support claims and humanize a page. Since we’re all SEOs here, we’ll add one more benefit: testimonials can include key phrases.

Do you have your testimonials on a separate page? You might want to reconsider that decision. Check GA4 and you may find that you’ve put your best social proof on a page that rarely gets visited. 

At Orbit Media, we design and develop a ton of B2B lead generation websites. After measuring performance for 500+ websites, I have a recommendation for you: 

“Don’t make a separate testimonials page. Instead, make every page a testimonials page. Embed social proof directly into your key service pages, right next to the specific claims they support.”

The goal isn’t to add testimonials but to support marketing claims with evidence. Here is a more complete list of types of evidence that can  build trust and improve conversion rates:

• Testimonials: Pair client quotes with measurable results and always include the client’s name, photo, and company logo. A testimonial like, “We doubled our leads in six months,” is much more powerful when accompanied by these details.
• Case studies /stories: Present real-world examples of how your product or service solved a customer’s problem. For example, “Our team redesigned the client’s website, resulting in a 150% increase in conversions within three months.”
• Awards: Highlight certifications, industry awards, or quantitative achievements that establish credibility. For example, “Winner of the 2023 Best SEO Agency Award, recognized for outstanding client results.”
• Years in business: Highlight longevity to build trust. For example, we include “10+ years in business” on key pages.
• Size of operation: Mention operational scale to reassure customers. For example, “A global team of 50+ experts delivering results across 10 industries.”
• Number of happy customers: Showcase customer satisfaction with quantifiable proof. For example, “Trusted by over 500+ happy clients worldwide, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.”

The call to action is one of the most critical elements of a conversion-focused page. It’s the money click. Yet, businesses often overlook them.

So, before we optimize, let’s unpack why CTAs fail:

• Vague, uninspiring text: Language like “Submit” does little to motivate action. CTAs need to tell visitors exactly what they’re getting. Specificity correlates with conversion. For example, replace “Submit” with “Get My Free Quote” or “Start My Project Today” to immediately improve clarity and show value.
• Decision fatigue: Offering too many choices overwhelms visitors, and they’re more likely to leave without taking any action. A strong page focuses on one primary CTA with limited distractions. This is why PPC landing pages often don’t have header navigation.
• Poor placement and visibility: CTAs buried at the bottom of long pages or hidden in cluttered designs often go unnoticed. Visitors shouldn’t have to scroll endlessly to find the action you want them to take.
• Ineffective timing: Placing CTAs only at the end of a page misses opportunities to capture attention earlier in the visitor’s journey where context meets action.

For example, Moz recently published an article on a Ziff Davis study about LLM preference for high-DA websites. They added CTAs to their free DA checker in subheadings that mentioned how LLMs use DA and its influence on training data.

How we improve CTA performance at Orbit Media:

Simple adjustments to CTAs can lead to measurable improvements in clickthrough rates. Every word, placement, and design choice determines whether a visitor clicks or keeps scanning. 

CTA improvements I recommend include:

• A/B testing for small gains:
  Test button color, size, and placement to boost clickthrough rates. For example, swapping out a generic blue button for a high-contrast orange can make the CTA more visually prominent and sometimes increase click-through rates.
• Strategic placement: 
  Some visitors are ready to convert. This is the 10th time they’ve visited and they’ve been watching your brand for years. So, make the path short and easy. Placing CTAs only at the bottom of a page is a missed opportunity. Instead, try adding mid-page CTAs in high-engagement areas, like after answering a common objection or following a key piece of evidence. These additional touchpoints gave visitors multiple chances to take action without feeling pressured.
• Create a seamless journey: 
  The CTA must match the visitor’s mindset at that journey stage. In articles, add CTAs to download guides or subscribe to a newsletter. On service pages, use CTAs for lead gen and scheduling demos. The CTA intent must match the page intent.

Don’t use AI to find efficiencies. Use AI to find deficiencies. Many marketers only use AI for writing content, but it’s one of the most powerful tools for gap analysis and finding deficiencies. It can also provide a roadmap to fix friction points, clarify messaging, and fill gaps where trust is lacking.

I published an AI-powered gap analysis guide on Moz if you want to read it. But for this article,  we’ll focus on using AI to fill conversion-related gaps.

How I use AI for conversion optimization

First, you need to give AI a webpage for analysis 

You can copy and paste the text below into an AI tool for a quick messaging review. Alternatively, you can also take a full-page screenshot  (using tools like Snagit) and upload it alongside an audit prompt. 

This allows the AI to evaluate the UX elements, such as trust seals, which are important for conversion. For SEO insights, upload the HTML, which gives the AI, elements like the title tag and meta tags.

The next step is to teach the AI about your target audience

Similar to the qualitative research we did with customer interviews, upload your ICP (ideal client profiles) or start with a quick persona prompt. 

Is it off? Missing something? Tell the AI to change the persona until you’re confident it’s 95% correct. The key isn’t the demographic information about your audience. It’s the decision criteria for selecting a company in your category. 

Now that it knows your prospect, you can give it the page along with this conversion optimization prompt:

The suggestions are often very insightful. Here’s an example:

This mini AI audit covers a range of conversion-related elements:

• Clarity of messaging: Are we answering visitor questions at every stage of the decision process?
• Use of social proof: Are testimonials, awards, or case studies prominently placed?
• Use of cognitive biases: Did you miss opportunities to trigger urgency? Mention scarcity?
• Visual hierarchy: Are CTAs and key messages placed where they are most visible?
• Objection handling: Are we addressing the common concerns that hold visitors back? 

Recently, I ran an audit on a landing page with high traffic but low conversions. The LLM revealed that the trust elements, such as client logos and testimonials, were buried too far down the page. After repositioning them near the headline, conversion rates improved significantly.

For the next step, the AI can suggest changes that could improve the conversion rate. Here’s a sample prompt:

"Suggest changes that would make the page more helpful and compelling to the visitor based on the persona above. Highlight the changes in the recommendations."

If you want more leads, you don’t really need more traffic; you just need a better conversion rate. Go deep and fix the bottom of your funnel. Optimize your service pages for conversion and answer those unanswered questions. Add evidence to support unsupported claims and lean on AI to audit your page to find deficiencies where you can improve.

I've given you two playbooks for generating traffic and converting visitors. You now know the secrets of building a scalable inbound machine. Put these tricks to good use. Keep iterating, measuring, and optimizing!